With a turnout of over a hundred people with some traveling as far as Port MacDonnell, Mount Gambier and the Melbourne south Eastern suburbs, the evening started with Marin Ellul kicking of proceedings with the formalities followed by a Dale McClelland with a basic summation of the issue, this was followed by an in depth presentation from Antony Hurst on SBT facts and the issues with the grey areas in its management, Garry Kerr then spoke about “Keep Australia fishing” and a few other issues after which point the floor was opened up to questions.
It was great to see such great representation at the meeting from peak body’s, federal and State politics, council and local business as well as the fishing community. I am sure all anglers appreciate these people giving up there time on a Friday night to be informed of our concerns and issues. We would like to thank Anthony Hurst Executive officer of Fisheries Victoria, Russel Conway from VRFish & RECFISH, Garry Kerr from AFTA, Ben Scullin from BIA, Warrnambool Mayor Jacinta Ermacora as well as other councillors Jennifer Lowe. Rob Askew and Peter Hulin, representative from Dennis Napthine’s office (State member for south west coast & the Minister for Ports, Minister for Regional Cities.) and Lisa from Dan Tehan’s office (Federal Member for Wannon), Matthew Hunt from the charter industry as well as representation from Portland’s commercial fishing industry. Also a thanks must go out to Mary Alexander from the Standard and Alex from Win news Barry Tanner from The Geelong Fishing show and their respective teams for the media coverage they have provided on the issue, and the South Rovers for opening up their doors and allowing us to use their facilities.
the crowd starting to gather
There is no question that our SBT fishery is coming under pressure from several angles, over the last few weeks we have seen a little bit of back paddling as a result of the issue being raised, this will be a long and drawn out campaign and we need to keep on top of it, so it doesn’t end up like the Mako ban issue of a few years ago, it is still not 100% clear on who is pushing what from where, and we might never get to the bottom of it, the other option is to allow them to do as they like and we start the fight as the ink is drying, one thing that is very clear is who did and didn’t attend the meeting, it was very disappointing that there was not representation from the Federal Government, minister Joe Ludwig, DAFF or AFMA, as far as I am aware at the time of this blog update they have not even responded to invitations to the meeting as yet and only issued a media release to The Standard, I am happy to be corrected on this should I be wrong.
Warrnambool Mayor Jacinta Ermacora addressing the
port upgrades questions at the end of the night
fantastic wrap up Guys
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